Completely see-through mice pave way to mapping human brain

Ali Ertürk at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and his team have worked out how to make rodents transparent and shrink them by two-thirds, so that the whole animal can be viewed under a microscope and subjected to detailed laser scanning.

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The team used the technique on mice genetically engineered to make their nerve cells glow green, revealing the mouse’s entire nervous system in unprecedented detail (Nature Methods, DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.3964). “You can track individual cells several centimetres long that reach from the brain right through to the tip of the spinal cord,” says Ertürk.

The technique uses solvents to clear the body of its water, and much of its fat too, over three or four days. This leaves the remaining tissue and bones transparent, enabling much clearer, crisper microscope images.

The researchers have already scaled the technique up for rats, which are 10 times larger than mice. “It might be possible with larger animals, such as small monkeys, and possibly with a whole human brain for the first time in the near future,” says Ertürk.

The team hopes to uncover the neural connections in healthy people, and to show how conditions like Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis affect the brain.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Nerves glow green though transparent mini mouse”